


Summer, Green

by spirrum



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, featuring the usual suspects, scenes from a romance, spoilers for the whole game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3086327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's in the rare moments of calm that it happens - slowly, quietly, and not without a small amount of awkwardness, fumbling words and fumbling hands grasping for something lovely in the midst of a world torn asunder.</p><p>A small collection of moments and happenstances spanning the breadth and width of Thedas, depicting the slow-budding romance of one Commander of the Inquisition and the Herald of Andraste.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. old and new hurts

**Author's Note:**

> The Inquisitor featured is one Bree Trevelyan, former Circle mage currently busy running an Inquisition. Likes her tea black and her ale frothy, is partial to horses and a good book. A calm sea hiding strong currents, she's got something of a temper, but tries her best to keep a level head.

(or, a chance meeting at camp where Cullen gets an unintended eyeful)

They reach camp, and her back smarts like all hell, enough to make her stagger the last few steps into the tent. The Hinterlands are bigger than she’d ever imagined, and it’s been long hours trekking across uneven terrain and uprooting what feels like half the herbs in Ferelden before they finally reach the camp at the outskirts. A Circle mage most of her life, she’s a scholar more than an adventurer, but she’s embraced her new role with gusto and won’t complain just because the entire sole of her foot is a blister and she’s got pine sap stuck in her hair.

Bull makes a passing comment – something about taking harder hits while sparring, but Bree can feel the tugging sensation of cloth-stuck-to-skin and doesn’t make a comment, for fear she might actually scream something. Swearing softly between steps, the bunk is a sorely welcome sight, and with the tent-flap secure and blessed privacy at hand, sets about trying to get her robe off.

 _Wolves,_  Maker take them. Massive beasts, and one moment of inattention had seen one sink its claws into her shoulder-blade. 

“Blast this never-ending wilderness.” The mutter turns to a hiss as hesitant fingers skim the edges of her shoulder, finding the tear in the cloth and the wound that sits beneath. The poultice had done little but stem the flow of blood, and her whole shoulder stings like a  _bast_ _–_

“Hoookay,” she breathes, before she gives another tug, and the cloth comes away with an oath. The tattered vest follows, as does the shirt, both discarded in a heap on the ground. The tent is chilly, and the water that’s been provided colder still.

“Half-naked in the wilderness. What a treat.” The cloth turns red as she presses it to the wound, and she wonders idly if she might need stitches. “Someone better have a clean shirt.” Figures she’s travelling with Bull and Varric, who couldn’t procure a decent shirt between them if their lives depended on it. She doesn’t need full modesty, but she’d like to make the journey back to Haven mostly covered. The local Chantry sisters throw her enough sidelong glances as it is.

“–this tent?” she hears then, the voice muffled. Then the tent-flap stirs, and she’s barely had the chance to recognize the identity of the speaker before light spills across the bunk.

She may have yelled – or he may have, she’s not entirely certain, but someone’s yelling – and she’s quick to throw an arm over her chest, although who’s the quicker is debatable, as the Commander is already getting himself tangled in the tent in his effort to get back out. A scuffle ensues, before the flap falls back and she’s left in the dark.

“I– I apologize! Varric said–” There’s an interruption, and then Varric’s voice, professing his innocence, 

“I said she was in there, I said nothing about whether or not she’d be  _decent_.”

Cullen makes an incredulous noise, and Bree wants to dive behind the bunk, though there’s no one to see her now. There’s been – something between them, in smiles exchanged across the War Table, and conversations while watching the recruits train, hands brushing gently, eyes averted. She can’t put it into words yet, but her lion is a rabbit, fast in flight if she doesn’t play her cards right, and he just might flee, right now, and she–

She’s without a shirt, and sense, it would seem, and before she can stop herself,

“Commander!” she calls, and nearly slaps herself because that hadn’t been her intention. Thinking on her feet is not a strong suit, and she might as well have put her entire foot in her mouth.

There’s a pause, and a shuffle of feet. She thinks she can hear Bull laughing across the camp. Then, “Yes?” followed by a familiar cough.

Bree nearly smiles. The question is on the tip of her tongue, and she allows it a moment to simmer before she asks, “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare shirt on you?”

Silence greets her question. Then there’s a noise and – and she quite wishes she could see his expression, to be honest – before the tent-flap is drawn open, but with a care this time, before a piece of cloth lands on the ground by the bunk. The whole exchange is made in silence, but when she reaches for it, the cloth is warm to the touch.

The wound still stings, but the shirt is a small pleasure and she tries not to think about the sap in her hair as she tugs it over her head. Small joys, she reminds herself, and the thought is laden. This side of the Frostbacks there’s blessed few to find.

.

.

.

“Not a word,” Cullen warns, pulling at the straps of his breastplate. The metal is cold against bare skin, but he’s known worse pains and he’ll find a new shirt before making for Haven. The climate of the Hinterlands is bearable; the Frostbacks will be less kind.

The dwarf merely smiles, and Cullen has the distinct feeling word will precede him on his arrival. If Josephine doesn’t know by midday, the Nightingale surely will. It’s a lesson well learned – ask before entering, and take anything Varric says with a grain of salt. It’s arguable that he should have already learned the latter; the dwarf is honest enough about the questionable nature of his own habits. 

The tent stirs then, and the Herald exists, fastening the shirt-strings of the over-large piece of cloth and steadily avoiding his eyes. Her movements are stiff, and he spots a bandage peeking out from beneath the wide collar. He’d only caught sight of the wound, and…other things, and the question about her health fails him when she finally raises her gaze.  

“Commander,” she greets. A laden pause, then in a hardened tone, “Varric.”

Cullen clears his throat, and finds he has too many hands and not enough places to put them. Varric appears to have no intention of leaving, and the whole thing’s appropriately awkward.

"Shoulder okay?" the dwarf finally asks, and Trevelyan grimaces.  

"I’m off to hunt down a potion, but it’s stopped bleeding, so I guess that’s something." She rolls the shoulder experimentally, and flinches. "Damn."

 ”I could–” Cullen starts, but he’s already stopped himself, not entirely sure what services he’s about to offer. 

She meets his eyes, then, and he notes the slight flush to her cheeks. An image leaps towards him, a wide expanse of freckled skin, and Cullen instinctively drops his gaze.   

“Thank you,” she says, and he starts, and then – and then he promptly forgets about the dwarf. There’s tree sap in her hair and her eyes speak of an exhaustion she’s not willing to show, but she’s smiling and Cullen can’t find his words.

“For the shirt,” she adds, smile widening to a grin that disappears as she turns smoothly on her heel, and she’s off across the camp. The requisitions officer hails her down before she’s made it past the tents, and she’s whisked away for a report.

Cullen lingers, shirtless for all intents and purposes, and he can already see the wheels turning in Varric’s mind.

_"No."_

"Already got the first chapter written, Curly." 


	2. snow rabbit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after In Your Heart Shall Burn, before the journey to Skyhold.

When they pull her out of the snow, hands cold, cheeks flushed, soul colder still, bruised and battered but  _alive,_ thank the Maker, Cullen feels a relief he hasn’t known in years.

Mage hands are upon her arms, warm with unnatural heat, and the healing magic sends tingles down his spine. But it’s not the good kind,  _oh no,_  it’s the bad sort, and with it he remembers things he’d much rather forget – magic, blood magic, dark magic, tainted magic, creeping along the floor, the walls, the ceiling, screams echoing, bouncing off the stones, voices taunting,  _jeering_ , trapped in a cage of his own making–

“Commander?”

The voice stirs him out of his thoughts, and he submerges with a noticeable breath. If she lets on, the Nightingale doesn’t mention it, only nods towards the makeshift tent they’ve put up to accommodate the Herald.

“She asked for you.”

He starts. He doesn’t mean to, but it’s a reflex he can’t control; he hadn’t expected that. “For me?”

The Nightingale smiles – a smooth quirk of the lips that speaks more words than her simple utterance, and he wonders if he’s somehow part of her game. Not the Great Game, but one of her own making, spun from her own affinity for matchmaking. He’s heard the story of the Hero of Ferelden – the well-timed romance with the bastard prince that Leliana swears with a smile she had nothing to do with.

She doesn’t give him the chance to ask further questions as she turns, heading for the fire-pit and leaving him to his own thoughts again. He risks a glance towards the Herald, and Mother Giselle at her side. The mage who has helped warm her is gone, and he loiters a moment in indecision before he makes his way towards the tent.

“Cul- Commander,” she says, and tries to rise but fails. She coughs, a rough, hacking sound that makes him grimace. That’s not a good sound, and he finds his concern mirrored in the Mother’s dark eyes. The Herald’s cheeks are flushed and her eyes glassy – they were lucky they found her when they did. It’s the same luck that’s always at her side, the one that hints at divine intervention, or something else equally remarkable.

For a moment he doesn’t know what to say, and lingers awkwardly by the tent post. “You’re doing…well?” He wants to ram his head against the post before the words are completely off his tongue.

As expected, there is a long pause. The Herald coughs.

“I will go and…warm myself by the fire,” the Mother says, sparing him a single, knowing glance as she departs. Cullen wonders at the wisdom of the decision to come over, but he can’t leave now – it’ll look more like fleeing than anything else, although he’s not sure that’s not exactly what he wants. In an attempt to find somewhere to rest his eyes – somewhere safe, somewhere that’s not her eyes, green and summer-bright and so out-of-place in the cold winter grip of this unnamed place in the Frostback Mountains – Cullen settles for the nearest tent post.

“You,” he begins, and has to clear his throat. He risks a glance, and her head is tilted, brows quirked in bemusement. “You asked to see me,” he finishes lamely, and wonders if there’s a snow bank deep enough to bury himself later, if only to escape the humour that he sees kindling in her glassy gaze. It’s the same, playful cheek that’s lurked at the edges of their conversations for weeks; the kind that makes him feel like a recruit blushing through his armour, and he’s never known how to respond to it. He’s seen a lot of Thedas in his life, but she’s new territory, uncharted, possibly dangerous. No, most certainly dangerous, and he doesn’t know how to proceed, or even if to proceed at all. Some short years earlier he would have discarded the thought before even thinking it.

But now Cullen remembers the cold, snowy trek through the mountains, thinking he’d squandered his only chance – that he should have said something earlier, done something before she’d brought an avalanche down upon herself to save them all. But her luck is an endless string of rabbit’s feet – that is, endless until it finally runs out. And he resolves then, if not a little uncertainly, that he cannot count on it to give him another chance.

And so, “It’s…good, to have you back with us.” The words feel too large for his mouth, but genuine pleasure tugs at the corners of her expressive mouth. Her brow softens, and the scar between her eyes smooths.

“I– yes. It’s good to be here,” she says, and coughs. “I wanted to see – I didn’t know if you’d made it out. I’m glad.”

Cullen smiles, because for all her cheek there’s a nervousness there he recognizes.

“It’s all thanks to you,” he says, honestly, because he’ll never forget turning from the sight of her, rushing into the fray to buy them time. But it’s almost difficult to reconcile that image – taller than she really is, rising against a backdrop of blood red and the white of the snow, staff in one hand, the mark bright in the other – with the woman propped up on the bunk before him now, small and blanket-wrapped, thin wrists cradled softly in her lap, as though she doesn’t carry the weight of the world in the palm of her hand. She looks –  _human_ , he decides, and marvels again that hasn’t she always been just that?

Her hand jerks then, and he starts, and realizes quickly that she’d been –  _reaching for his?_ But she’s not looking at him now, eyes averted to the snow, and Cullen thinks about Haven, and small moments between the War Room and watching the recruits train – a cheerful wave from across the grounds, a quick smile as she’d passed by, Cassandra and Varric bickering at her heels, a tongue-in-cheek remark at an opportune moment, drawing laughter from his lungs he hasn’t known in years – and he wonders. It’s not just kindness she’s shown him, if not very wise, he’s certainly old enough to know that much. She’s free with her friendship, but it’s something else she saves for him – earnest, toothy smiles, and the rare crinkle at the corner of her eyes.

She pinches the bridge of her nose then, and rubs at her eyes. “I’m sorry. Do you – would you mind if I just…lay down a bit? I’m,” she doesn’t succeed holding back the yawn that follows, “a bit worn out. Hazardous trek through the mountains and all.” She grins. “I promise to provide better conversation at a later date.”

It’s that humour that’ll get her through whatever lies ahead, Cullen is certain, and wonders what inner well she draws it from. He nods, and is about to ask –  _what_? Something, everything, nothing, he doesn’t know, for her eyes have closed and she’s dozed off already, as comfortable as he’s never seen a mage in his presence. He wonders at that, too; wonders at her and everything she is, and if he’ll ever stop wondering. There’s a lightness in his chest that feels at odds with the weight of his years heavy on his shoulders. It’s not the first time he feels what he does, but it’s the first time he acknowledges the feelings for what they are. He’s–

Oh, he’s in deep, is what he is _._ Varric might as well start writing his next series.  _The Chantry Boy’s Folly_ , or something equally mortifying, to properly encapsulate what is bound to be a disastrous venture. The Herald of Andraste and the Commander of the Inquisition? A potential bestseller perhaps, but anything more than that? He’s reluctant to so much as hope. And yet…

As she falls into an exhausted, magic-induced sleep, Cullen remains where he is for a little while longer, steadily ignoring the Nightingale’s eyes on the back of his neck and the way Cassandra fails to hide her concerned prowling. And the woman with the world in her hand sleeps on, the one not bearing the mark limp against the wool blanket, fingers curled towards her palm. Cullen doesn’t reach for it.

But he doesn’t deny the urge to, and that’s more than a start.  


	3. wild mare, give me your reins

She likes horses.

He learns this early on, watching her from across the training grounds at Haven, one eye on his recruits and the other on the stables, and her laughter a rich sound rising between the dark wooden beams. The gruff, balding man who provides their horses takes a quick liking to her odd mannerisms, but then Cullen's not convinced she didn't charm the horsemaster to join them with that strange way she's got. 

The Trevelyans have always kept horses, she tells him when he asks. She's helped breed and train some of them herself, and there's an old fondness in her eyes when she says it. Cullen remembers the conversation at odd moments, and makes a point to walk by the stables more often. The wary dapple likes carrots, she'd lamented once, but there'd been none to be found in Haven that time of year. He'd scrounged an apple from the tavern, the closest he could find, and to this date he doesn't know who'd been the more pleased, her or the horse.

Her dedication to the beasts doesn't change after she takes up her new mantle as the Inquisitor. The horsemaster doesn’t much care for Skyhold's altitude, but she helps out when she can, and between duties to the Inquisition she works with the stablehands. For all her noble birth, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty. It makes some of them uncomfortable – the Herald of Andraste and the leader of the Inquisition shovelling manure – and Cullen wonders if she doesn't secretly enjoy it.

He finds it fascinating, anyhow, this little detail that most seem to overlook. She's larger than life with the world in her palm, but to Cullen she's also a woman who relishes in small joys, like a soft muzzle rooting through her pockets for treats. It's private, almost, this shared thing between them.

And of course, knowing him he was bound to make a mess of it.

“I,” he says one day, in a quiet lull by the stables. She's sneaking treats to her favourite chestnut, and before he can stop himself, “I never did learn to ride.”

It's a lie. Oh, it's an enormous, outrageous  _lie_ , but the look that crosses her face makes him feel less bad about it than he probably should.

“You can't  _ride_?” she asks, as though he's told her he's never quite learned how to eat with cutlerly. And of course it's perfectly ridiculous. He's military trained, of course he's learned to ride, but his mouth has gotten the better of him and Cullen isn't entirely sure how he feels about it.

“You never said,” she continues, brows drawing together in what looks like suspicion, and he wonders if she's about to call him on his bluff. 

But then, “Would you...would you like me to teach you?”

And as it happens, he doesn't feel all that bad about it. Not really.

She'll discover the truth soon enough, but for now that bemused smile is all for him, and all the wonder of the world in her eyes, and honestly - he couldn't have made himself regret that if he'd tried. 


	4. harrowed

He dreams of Harrowings.

He’s in the Circle Tower, and he’s another man, a different man, wearing a different mantle but no less heavy. He knows this dream; he’s dreamed it before, and he knows the drill with a soldier’s hardened memory. There’s a sword at his hip, and the weight of it roots him to the ground and the dream with the knowledge of what he might use it for. His uniform feels too tight, ill-fitting like a second skin stretched too thin over his shoulders, and he has trouble breathing. It’s too hot, and his collar itches, and then the mages round the corner and–

–and it’s  _her_  face he sees now, smooth and young without the scars he knows as well as the freckles, eyes wide and curious as she hangs onto the words of the First Enchanter. She walks by him but she doesn’t see him –  _doesn’t know him, one templar from another_ – and Cullen is mute, voice trapped at the back of his throat. Her eyes linger a little on his, the span of a single breath, the way they did the first time they met, but it’s a hesitant smile that greets him now, not the one he knows from the end of long days with long meetings, there to lure him to the battlements for a stolen kiss between duties.

It takes only a moment for her to pass, and then she’s turned away, and Cullen follows at their backs, sword at the ready and a dark knowledge at the bottom of his heart. The First Enchanter is still speaking, the words more familiar than any lullaby his mother ever sang, and Cullen remains by the door as they proceed to the middle of the chamber, eyes on the back of her neck. He can’t spot the freckles, but she’s been out of the sun, always below the Circle’s roof and her skin is another’s, soft and unmarred by the sheltered life of a Circle mage. She’s not the Inquisitor here, but the knowledge is slow in coming, and he can’t tear his eyes from the soft curve of her ear as she angles her head. 

He never knows how these dreams turn out, because it’s never the same when it’s her, and he’s holding his breath waiting for the result. She’s attentive, always careful, and then she’s lost in the Fade and all he can do is wait, and some nights it feels like a moment, others an eternity. In some dreams she emerges victorious, and then she’s passing by him again, but there’s no more recognition in her eyes than before, and he’s just another templar to her and it  _hurts_ , but not as much as the nights where she does not return, or where she lingers in the Fade too long, and his hand in on the pommel of his sword, palm sweaty beneath his glove, and he advances with a grief he knows no respite from, blade lifted towards the abomination that looms where she’d been standing a moment before, and–

–a cool hand on his forehead, a soft “Cullen?” cuts through the howl of the wind against the tower, but it’s the summer green of her eyes that pulls him all the way back. And it’s not the Circle Tower and he’s not a templar anymore, and there’s recognition in her eyes, none for the man he was but for the one he is, and with that Cullen can breathe again.

A hand on his cheek, her thumb gently traces the scar on his lip. “Bad dream?”

The words are too sharp to speak, and so he settles for nodding. But she doesn’t ask more than that, and if he holds her a little too tightly she doesn’t remark on it, and says nothing else as she drifts off again, into dreams and demons he can’t keep her from. And Cullen traces the sun-kissed skin of her shoulders and roots himself in the present, and the truth of the darkened freckles on her neck.


	5. regal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the tumblr flower prompt meme: lily (majesty). This ficlet contains spoilers for the Trespasser DLC.

The ballroom is a cacophony of noise, laughter and music and the general din expected of Orlesian festivities, but blessedly muffled by the large set of double doors at his back. In stark contrast the hallway sits, quiet save the occasional clink of glasses on a tray, and the shuffle of a servant’s feet, breezing by in the shadows.

Footfalls on the level above, and Cullen lifts his gaze to the figure making its way down the staircase, pulling a train of wispy white-and-silver fabric that clings with reverence to a dear and familiar shape. The sight drags his breath clean from his lungs.

“Like a Queen,” he says as she descends the steps, taking care not to step on the hem of her dress, fingers fisted in the soft fabric. She’s quick to cover up the way her face falls at the remark, but he catches the downward pull of her lips; the tremble of that lone hand, gripping the pearl-lined fabric like she might well rip it off.

“It’s this ridiculous dress,” she tries, her small smile wavering just a fraction. “Though I doubt the Queen of Ferelden herself ever wore such a thing.”

She comes to the bottom of the steps. The skirt of her dress pools around her legs, and he’s entranced by the sight of her, the soft curves wrapped in silver-white and her exposed collar lined with pale fur. There’s a length of fabric attached to the bodice, like a half-cape, to conceal her missing arm.

“The tailor meant well, I’m sure,” she says, fingers plucking at the cape. “Though there’s no hiding it. They’ll still stare. Perhaps even more now.” She presses her lips together. “I don’t want to hide,” she murmurs. “Although I’ll wager the sight of my unseemly stump would throw the court into such shock, they’d need their smelling salts before I’d made it halfway across the ballroom.”

Cullen reaches out, to tuck an errant lock of hair behind the curve of her ear. Her expression softens. “I’m rambling,” she sighs. “You’d think I’ve faced worse things than a ball.”

His grin is a tinge wicked. “With Orlesians,” he reminds her.

Bree snorts. “Rampaging Qunari seem like a preferable option right now.” She tugs at the cape again, expression pulling into a grimace. “Maker take this blasted thing.”

He makes to take her hand, slender and pale and adorned with nothing but her wedding ring. He pulls it away from the cape, tucking her fingers against his palm. “It’ll be the latest fashion next month,” he tells her. “Isn’t that how these things work?”

She grins, a flicker of genuine humour lighting up her face, and her kohl-rimmed eyes curving at the corners. “What, the cape or the arm? I don’t know if I’d like being the reason half the ladies of the Imperial Court lopped their limbs off.”

Cullen laughs, a startled bark of a sound, and feels a rush of fondness so fierce, he’s half tempted to pick her up and spin her around. He settles instead for pulling her into a kiss, careful not to disrupt her carefully arranged hair, but she seems less inclined to give a damn, leaning into the press of his mouth with a sigh that shakes loose some of the tension in her shoulders.

Drawing back, he finds there are strands of hair escaping their confinement, and he brushes them back from her brow. A circlet of silver has been woven between the locks, glinting white in the candlelight.

“They will think you as regal as I do,” he says, fingers skirting a loving path down her jaw. “And if they stare, let them.”

Bree smiles. “My, how forceful. You know we’re not looking to conquer, yes?”

He holds out his arm. “I don’t know what you mean, my love.”

“Oh I’m sure you don’t,” she says, taking his arm; fingers curling against the dip of his elbow. The pale colour of her dress stands out starkly against the dark velvet of his jacket.

The doors are opened to let them pass, the tumult of the ballroom knocking against them, to wrap them up in a whirlpool of skirts and masks. There are fleeting glances and snippets of conversation as they drift past, nothing, not contempt nor passion, lasting more than a single moment, but her presence is a solid thing beside him, a steadfast rock in a churning river of impressions.

And there are stares, following them as they walk; gazes caught and held by the sight of her, but she’s looking resolutely ahead. She always expects the worst these days, the events of the Exalted Council carried in the furrow of her brow; the tightening of her fingers against his arm. She’d scoff at the notion that they’d harbour so much as an ounce of admiration for her, now that she’s no longer Inquisitor, but Cullen sees the reverent looks, not harsh but open, their eyes wide, and mouths muttering their awe, hidden by fans. And it might not be the Inquisitor who walks amongst them, but there’s deference in the quiet way they part to let them pass, some going so far as to bow.

He thinks of their quiet hearth then, so far away from this gilded palace of marble floors and arching doorways. The wooden floorboards of their sitting room and the thick rugs. Her hair loose and her garments simple, shirts stolen from his dresser, the sleeves rucked up to her elbows, and dirt on her well-worn boots. But even in his thoughts he sees her slightly tilted chin, and finds it now, too, as she manoeuvres the court; bows her head in greeting and trades pleasantries in passing. Not a Queen, no, but still so much more than she’d give herself credit for.

She looks at him then; tilts her head to claim his gaze, the circlet catching the light of the chandeliers. And it takes no convincing her of what he feels, Cullen knows, by the affection etched into her features.

“Dance with me?” she asks, like she had once, years ago. Then, with a quick smile, “Though you might have to hold on a little tighter. I’ve only got the one hand.”

Lips pressed to her temple, Cullen takes a moment to savour the thought, that when the night is over they can go home. Still a figurehead of some sort, but she no longer belongs to the Inquisition. To Thedas. The thought is a pleasing one, igniting another, almost impish urge, to pull her close and bury his fingers in her hair. But she’s wary under the eyes of the court, and there’ll be time for _that_  later. Tonight, he follows her lead.

“I might never let you go,” he warns, and she smacks him good-naturedly, a soft laugh pulling free, too loosen her previous frown.

“Foolish man.” But she’s still smiling when he tugs at her hand, drawing her towards the throng of dancing couples. And she doesn’t seem to mind the arm quite so much as he helps her stand on his feet, her flat-soled shoes finding purchase with some struggle, but he holds her close, and she doesn’t stumble.

“They are staring now,” he murmurs, a silent reminder that one word is all it takes, and he’ll whisk her away.

Bree tucks her chin against the hollow of his throat, and he feels her smile against his skin as he takes the first, tentative step, not bothering to chase the fast-paced notes of the band. They will carve a path of their own, as they always have.

Her arm tightens around his neck, and there’s defiance in her voice when she speaks.

“Let them.”


End file.
